


down is the new up

by starbolin, verity



Series: all my past and futures [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, Kate and Clint do Space Vegas, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbolin/pseuds/starbolin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: Phạm Family Beach Experience has been in Region 4 of Erycina since this corner of Little Russia was Little Vietnam. Plastic palm trees sway in the sand dunes out front, real ones languish under the grow lights by the pool, and a vintage jacuzzi bubbles away in the back of the bar all night long. You can buy anything here—a drink, a manicure, an RPG launcher that breaks down small enough to put in a backpack—if you ask nicely enough."Maybe I'll go for a swim." Kate twirls her straw between her fingers. "I brought a bikini."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magneticwave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneticwave/gifts).



> the lighter counterpoint to _we all went to heaven in a little rowboat_ , written in 2014.
> 
> words made by verity, world built by starbolin.

The Rusty Nipple is so named for the mermaid bust hanging over the bar, bare-breasted and haphazardly soldered from chunks of remaindered ship hull by Nhung's aunt a few decades ago. "Wow, that's cool," Kate says, leaning forward and wriggling on her stool as Nhung pours her another Soju Sunrise. "Is your aunt a sculptor?"

Nhung smiles. "No. She owns a junkyard. Very profitable."

"Why'd you never tell me this?" Clint says. He's definitely sulking into his fourth beer. "I've been coming here for a decade."

"You never asked," Nhung says placidly, polishing one of the giant margarita tureens the Rusty Nipple is known for.

Nhung's grandfather is the owner and proprietor of Phạm Family Beach Experience, which has been in Region 4 of Erycina since this corner of Little Russia was Little Vietnam. Plastic palm trees sway in the sand dunes out front, real ones languish under the grow lights by the pool, and a vintage jacuzzi bubbles away in the back of the bar all night long. You can buy anything here—a drink, a manicure, an RPG launcher that breaks down small enough to put in a backpack—if you ask nicely enough.

"Maybe I'll go for a swim." Kate twirls her straw between her fingers. "I brought a bikini."

Clint meets Nhung's eyes over the bar. "Katie, no."

—

Parts of Erycina are still perfectly nice, which is why Clint never goes to them. "You're buying me an aerial lap dance tomorrow," Kate says as they stumble groggily back to their cubby in Region 3. They're staying in a full-on mock-up of some Earth casino with one of those Egyptian lion people outside, heavy on the eyeliner and golden paint. Their room is in the nose, which has a great view of the ground through the window in the floor and correspondingly discounted rates. Clint shoves Kate into the bottom bunk so she doesn't break her neck and climbs into the top. Aerial lap dances. Jesus.

When Kate said, "We're going to Vegas for my birthday," Clint thought she was joking at first. Then he said, "Aren't you, like, 12?" As it turns out, Kate is now 19 and has been saving up for six months to spring this bullshit on him. When he called Nat on link to complain, she sent him a wanted poster featuring Barnes's old dick and disconnected.

Now Kate mumbles, "I should have brought America. She'd let me go in the pool."

"That pool is full of discarded hypos and plague and—death," Clint says seriously, drawing the comforter up to his chin. "I don't want you to die."

Kate yawns. "Aww, you're so drunk." A minute later, she starts snoring.

—

Clint grew up in Erycina back when it was just starting to turn into a shitpool and was still a way station for travelers when Earth and Mars were out of alignment. He spent a couple of years professionally shooting targets with flaming arrows for a few $E before he joined the MWC military in hope of better weapons and a good time. Spoiler alert: it was not a good time.

Two years in, Nat picked him up at a Moon bar on leave, said, "Hey, soldier. Can I show you some fun?" Which turned out to involve a no-atmosphere, low-gravity car chase and what was arguably theft but _technically_ just returning stolen property to its owner. Clint didn't figure out James wasn't human until afterward, when James asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?" and Clint said, "You have really strong arms. And pretty eyes. I've never seen eyes that do that."

Because Clint is now a responsible adult and stuff, he has a crappy two-room module next to a convenience store in New Moscow, and he's never taken Kate with him to Erycina even though they have warrants out for them on every inhabited planet in this solar system. Including Earth—Clint's proud of that one.

—

In the morning, they video chat with Lucky, who is pissed. He glares sulkily at the camera with his bionic eye, a weird habit he picked up after the second surgery. "He's been pooping fine," Barney says in the background. "Could be that I don't feed him people food—"

"Could be," Clint says neutrally.

"Good puppy," croons Kate from her bunk. "Make nice poops for Barney."

Clint is crouched in front of the screen set into the wall, Kate still half-asleep behind him in bed. The hangover remedy he picked up from Nhung hasn't kicked in yet, so his eyeballs feel like they want to climb out of his skull and the low light coming through the nasal cavity below him is enough to make him want to break out the complimentary sunglasses that came with the room, insulation against the full-spectrum artificial light of Erycina's day. They have pyramids on the corners and say GIZA CASINO AND RESORT on the neon yellow arms.

Lucky huffs. Barney says, "Did the left burner on your stove break recently?"

Kate yawns. "Dunno, I've never used the stove."

"I think I made fake bacon on it once," says Clint.

After Barney and Lucky have finished judging them, Kate takes a shower while Clint goes downstairs to the bar and a Canopic Delight, which comes in its own collectible cup representing the organ of your choice. Clint gets a stomach because he doesn't want to think too much about his liver. "You're bold," the blonde woman on the stool next to him says, eyeing his drink. "I usually wait until after noon to get started."

Clint sighs. The bartender puts a little umbrella in the back of the jackal head on the Canopic Delight next to the straw.

—

Aerial lap dances are in the international Region 2, where gravity is about half a G and the docks in Region 1 are a floater ride away. Lyra Danceteria is one of the larger outfits. Lots of glitter, caters to rainbows, vegan—which is slang for "affordable" these days. Kate sips pre-pack "margaritas" out of plastic sleeves while the dancers put on a show, doing delicate calisthenics around stationary hoops and gliding on fluttering silks across the stage. Then they drift out toward the lunch crowd, men and women and more. A curvy person sporting a sheer bodysuit and pink hair upstairs and downstairs approaches Kate; Clint gets someone in one-sided dick sling with elaborate eye makeup. There's a tag clipped to the side of his sling that flashes _Jim/m/luv private dances_ in 10 languages and a cascade of warm colors.

"How may I help you?" Jim looms over Clint like an astronomical event. "A drink? Some conversation? Something more?"

"Conversation's good," Clint says, transmitting a 50$E credit as Kate follows _Carine/n/ladies_ first back to a solo dance cubby. "I'm here with a friend."

Jim turns out to be from the Region 3 neighborhood where Clint grew up, so they trash-talk the shrinking selection of grocery stores and public school system until Kate gets back, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. "Hey guys," she says, draping an arm around Clint's shoulder. "I think I wanna be a dancer when I grow up."

"She's legal," Clint says to no one.

—

They've been on Erycina for 43 hours when Clint gets approached on the street. "Hey, lady, you know where to get in touch for business." he says, trying to tug his arm away from Svetlana. She's like 80 and her grip is killer.

Svetlana rolls her eyes. "Not that kind of business."

"Uh-uh," Clint says. "I don't play that game anymore."

Kate is glaring at Svetlana from her place at Clint's side, arm thrown across his shoulders because she's still tipsy as hell from earlier. Svetlana gives her the old up-and-down, shameless in the way only ladies old enough to be your grandma and indifferent to your continued survival are. "You're doing well for yourself, Clinton."

"Please, I would never hit that," Kate says. "I have standards."

"Does she swim?" Svetlana says with interest.

Clint claps his hand over Kate's mouth before she can start talking about her bikini.

—

"Wetworks," he explains when they're safely inside the Rusty Nipple. Clint has a pint of Martian lager; Kate is sullenly nursing a glass of water and crunching on synthcorn chips. "We don't do that shit."

"But you have?" Kate says.

It's still light out, so the Rusty Nipple is pretty much dead except for the younger Phạms. Nhong is conspicuously restocking the bar and humming while Thien eats fried cod from the fish-and-chips pub next door. Clint might not know about their sculptor aunt or whatever, but he trusts them and their business as much as he trusts anyone on this station. "Remember how we met?"

Kate grimaces. "Sort of?"

"Before lockup," Clint clarifies. "When you were trying to pickpocket that asshole while you were drunk off your ass."

" _Trying_ , excuse you, I succeeded," Kate says, leaning back to elbow Clint in the kidney.

Clint grunts and shoves her off. "Look, everyone does dumb shit when they're a kid."

"Yeah, but I was adorable," Kate says. "And I didn't murder anybody, I was just trying to support myself in the lifestyle to which I was accustomed."

When she was 16, Kate _was_ adorable, and for like 10 hours after they met in overnight hold for public intoxication, Clint thought she was a cute, beer-soaked kitten. He offered Kate his shower and then she moved in and kicked him out of his bedroom, so Clint has been sleeping in a hammock in the main room for the last three years. Lucky loves her, the faithless asshole.

"Same," Clint says. "Remember, circus."

Thien looks up from her cod. "I remember. I've got a poster, actually."

"Oh my god." Kate sits up straight. "I have to see this."

—

Clint usually walks halfway around Region 4 through the rest of Little Russia when he's on his way to the DRC for some lituma and chicken mwambe, because everyone with any sense ignores the no-man's-land on the other side of Little Vietnam unless they want to buy drugs or illegally gamble. Predictably, Hell's Kitchen is where Kate wants to go next.

"It's a waste of time," Clint says as he trudges behind her. "And money. You like money."

Kate says, "This is what you say literally every time you don't want me to have any fun."

Robot fights are the most boring things Clint has ever sat through. You watch one fighter bot whack another in the face for an hour until one or both of them destroys a crucial electrical component, the food is oversalted and overpriced, not even the hecklers are having a good time. Kate loses 20$E on the first fight and is entranced. "Look at that one," she says, knocking her shoulder against Clint's. "It looks like our laundry basket with twenty legs. I'm gonna put 5 down on it."

"I'm not buying you any more drinks," Clint says ominously.

—

The laundry basket buys them drinks for the rest of the trip.

—

"I think my dad still has an apartment in URK," Kate says, pronouncing the letters: U-R-K. United Republic of Korea.

"Urk," Clint corrects her, "That's what we peons call it."

Urk, Perk, and Hokey share Region 5, furthest from Erycina's center and the decay that's set in since human habitation shifted permanently to Mars. The tech industry is still going strong out there, supporting public parks, swank housing, and the luxury black market. Clint's been there, jobs only. The station capitol is in Urk, but the Justice Center is in Region 3, smack in the middle of the bars and doss houses of the Eurosector. Funny how that works.

Kate swings her legs over the edge of her bunk. "You think I should see if he's there?"

"See if you can get in, you mean." Clint tugs his sleep shirt over his head. Tomorrow's their last day on Erycina, which is about right for the weirdo nostalgia to set in. He hates vacations. Give him twenty hours of excruciatingly dull recon any day.

"I mean, he froze my accounts when I split," Kate says. She frowns. "I'm not dumb, okay."

"I grew up around the block," Clint says. "You see me going over there?"

Kate groans and lies down. "You have Barney. You have, like—a thousand crime buddies."

"I have to drag your tween gang out of a bar at least once a week," Clint says.

After that, Kate goes quiet enough that Clint thinks she's gone to sleep until he looks up from packing to see her eyes on him. "You're a good partner, Hawkeye."

"Same to you, Hawkeye," Clint says. "Want to break into your dad's place?"

"Nah." Kate yawns. "I've got other plans."

—

"This is a bad idea," Clint says while the tattoo artist carefully applies the design trace to Kate's bicep. "Identifying marks, in this business—"

Kate rolls her eyes. "Like I'm going to Gomorrah in a can and _not_ getting a tattoo."

The tattoo artist smiles, lifting her head. "Placement good?"

"Hell yes," Kate says, pumping her free fist.

Because Hawkeyes go in for subtle, Kate's new tattoo is a purple heart with a silver arrow piercing it. Clint buys a matching sombrero from the Mexican bazaar down the road from the Giza. They get their photo taken in front of the Sphinx in full tourist regalia, pick up their bags, and head toward the docks. Sam's going to be pissed as hell if they keep him waiting.

True to form, the first thing Sam says is, "Come on, Customs can't have taken _that_ long."

" _Someone_ didn't declare her two dozen margarita packets before we went through scans," Clint says as Kate shoves past him into the foresection of the ship. " _Someone_ didn't budget money to bribe customs—"

"I didn't know you had to _bribe customs_ —" Kate glares at Clint.

Sam waves a hand and brings up the nav screens. "Nat's got a job for you. You guys free for a few days?"

"Bring it," says Kate, still glaring.

Clint grins at her. "I'm in."

—

("Erycina margaritas, really?" Sam says as they pull out of the dock.

"SHUT UP," says Kate.)


End file.
